Amtrak Adventures – Vancouver

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

Vancouver, B.C

Maybe we’d got cocky. Five weeks of hassle-free Amtrak voyaging, it had to go wrong somewhere. The fact it was our last journey of the trip just made it seem like fate. Up until now, we’d sorted out all our trips in advance and had all our tickets in hand. We’d deliberately left the last few days of the trip vague, in case we wanted to spend longer somewhere or missed a train etc. So, once we’d finalised our plans, I’d rung up Amtrak and booked our seats, all we had to do was pick them up at Seattle station. However we had not realised our plan would be foiled by a transvestite Amtrak assistant called Jessica.

She was really trying to be helpful, but had no idea how to print off our tickets. Time was ticking on, but still Jessica was having no joy, even when she called over her supervisor. Meanwhile, the Amtrak conductors were harassing Martina to get on the train. (Why they had to leave on time beats me, nine hours late into LA didn’t seem a problem to Amtrak). As the conductors were getting impatient and blowing the final whistle I just grabbed my credit card and passes and we jumped onto the train. Luckily the train conductors were charmed by our youthful looks and warm British accents and ignored the fact we had no ticket.

The journey back into Canada was short and without the immigration nightmare of entering Toronto. The nightmare only started when we found our hostel.

After the extravagance of our Seattle hotel, I’d opted for the most budget option for our Vancouver accommodation. That left us with the American Backpackers Hostel on West Pender Street. On entering the hostel, we were greeted with signs above the clerk’s desk saying:

“No sexx in rooms. Use the sexx room instead”

“Recommend us to friends, get $5 discount.”

Amtrak Adventures – Seattle

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

Feeling like we’d had a narrow brush with disaster, our train journey north to Seattle felt quite sedate. We had time to absorb the changing countryside as it got greener and greener – until we were in dense forestry. It also gave us a chance to chat to some of our fellow Amtrak travellers. We had some curious people who just wanted to look at our passports as if we were some kind of freaky zoo exhibit, and some people who defy description.

One of them introduced himself as Clayton Malloy Letson – a young bloke from New Mexico who played the ukulele. He started telling us about his life philosophy and his travels around America hitch-hiking. He was what my mother would call a ‘free spirit’ who had escaped New Mexico and was off to do some kind of work in Portland. After a while the conversation unavoidably turned to his ukulele, and he wanted to play me and Martina some songs. First up was the most high pitched rendition of ‘Sittin’ on the dock of the bay’ I have ever heard. Perhaps he was a eunuch in a previous life… Next up on the Clayton jukebox was a bit of the Beatles (“um, I dunno if you guys know this song or not, it’s pretty famous over here”). Yes Clayton, we do know ‘Yesterday’. His little musical rendition was gathering a small crowd in the lounge car (maybe they just enjoyed watching me and Martina squirm and stifle giggles) and before we knew if another bloke pulls out a flute and starts trying to join in. By this point my whole body is shaking trying to contain my laughter. Fortunately for us, Portland was the next stop and we had to wave goodbye to Clayton and his musical menagerie.

Amtrak Adventures – Sittin’ on the dock of the bay

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

San Francisco

Left Vegas on the bus and transferred at Bakersfield to an Amtrak California train (better seats, much better food), and then transferred again at Emeryville for a bus into San Francisco. Arrived at our hostel in the Mission after a long day’s travelling, without really taking much in of the city. The next morning we ate the free breakfast at the hostel (cake and more cake) and then jumped on the BART to Embarcadero as we wanted to go to Alcatraz. It was fully booked for the day so we bought tickets for the next day and decided to take this day to see some sights around the city. It was some kind of free transport day in San Fran so we took advantage of this by, um, walking everywhere. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf, which I thought was a bit touristy and nothing-y, but we did have a yummy salmon steak sandwich. We then walked through North Beach and Chinatown, found City Lights bookstore and spent a lovely hour browsing. Martina and I went our separate ways in the afternoon and I found the Cartoon Art Museum which was small and quiet but interesting. The political cartoons from around the world about America were particularly good.

Amtrak Adventures – California Dreamin’

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

Los Angeles

The delayed train had slightly hampered our plans for LA, as what had been a whole day of sightseeing was reduced to half a day. So we went to find our hostel in Hollywood which was near to the Thai quarter of town, on the corner of Hollywood and Western – the Gershwin Hostel. The receptionist was a tad peculiar but the building was really cool. Like many hostels we’ve stayed in on this trip, it felt a bit empty and a bit grotty, but the price was a steal at $16 a night. (Returning to the UK, I’ve found this hostel has a more colourful history – read about it here).

Amtrak Adventures – The Journey of Journeys

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

As soon as our 5.40am train pulled out of the station at San Antonio, I crashed out and snoozed my way to 10am. We were on the Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited to Los Angeles and we knew we had at least thirty hours on the train ahead of us. When I woke up the scenery had transformed into desert and shrubland as far as you could see. This, I was reliably informed was the Big Bend National Park. There were vast expanses of intimidating desert and scary looking cacti. Think the landscape of No Country for Old Men. So we scooted off to the observation car so we could get a good look all around us.

Amtrak Adventures – Alamo Antics

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

San Antonio, Texas

Excuse the multiple alliteration of the title, I just couldn’t help myself… So we left Fort Worth after a lovely few days making ourselves into cowgirls and jumped back on the Texas Eagle further south into Texas. The train ride was pretty uneventful – except to confirm just how vast the state of Texas is. What seemed to us as a short inter-state journey took as long as crossing several state lines when we’d been further north. We arrived in San Antonio at a reasonable hour but were just so sleepy we headed straight to our motel. We’d been staying in a run of dodgy places so weren’t too keen to clamp eyes on our next one, but this turned out to be a whole lot nicer; clean comfy beds, a clean bathroom and walking distance from the town centre, with (and this really made the room for us) a massive TV.

Amtrak Adventures – Cowboy Land

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

Fort Worth, Texas

The train was delayed getting to St. Louis so despite running around the city like nutcases trying to get to the station on time, we really shouldn’t have bothered. Two hours of sitting in a desolate waiting room made us bizarrely keen to jump on the Texas Eagle for another overnight trip.

Arrived in Fort Worth around 2pm and took a taxi to our motel. Our driver was a curious character with long white beard and hair and a car full of junk. He cracked a joke or two (“Are you guys from South Alabama? You don’t sound local.”) and informed us that what he’d seen of British people he didn’t think we were that great. We tried to assure him the whole country wasn’t full of Simon Cowells and Piers Morgans but he didn’t look convinced. His parting shot was that yet again we’d booked ourselves into a motel in Dodgy-ville and he basically told us never to leave the room alone or at night. Yey.

Amtrak Adventures – St. Louis

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

We ran for the train in Chicago and jumped aboard the Texas Eagle just in time. Arrived in St Louis at about 8pm and were greeted by the most desolate Amtrak station so far. Niagara Falls hadn’t been too inspiring, but the St Louis station appeared to be down a dirt track with no sign of life. You’d think this would have given us a clue but we rashly threw on our backpacks and headed towards a main road to find a bus or some kind of public transportation (we were on a pretty tight budget). This move wasn’t the best one because in the space of twenty minutes we bumped into a few of St Louis’ less salubrious residents. Slightly creeped out and very tired and hungry, we took shelter in a hotel where we called for a cab to rescue us.

We’d booked ourselves into the dubiously named Econolodge. If the name wasn’t inspiring, the locale wasn’t either. But safely locked in our room we ordered Domino’s, showered and watched cable TV until we fell asleep.

In the light of morning everything looked more positive and promising. Except the headline on the local newspaper: “The hottest day EVER?”. Oh dear.

Amtrak Adventures – Getting to Chicago

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

So far I haven’t actually said too much about the Amtrak trains themselves and they did play a pretty big part in this trek… When Martina and I had been plotting our route through the vastness of America we had all sorts of different ideas and places we wanted to stop off. It soon became clear that Amtrak wasn’t perhaps the transport of choice for many Americans. Whilst the quality of trains looked promising, the quantity did not. And as we started the journey it became very clear that passenger trains are a poor runner up to freight trains. But don’t let this put you off – Amtrak is a leisurely and relaxing way to travel, if you have the time.

Everywhere takes a while to get to and the trains don’t exactly exert themselves.

Amtrak Adventures – Washington DC

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

Washington DC was one of the places I was most excited about visiting and I’m pleased to say it didn’t let me down. During the train journey alone we notched up more and more US states. We’d so far only managed New York state but three hours later we’d added New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware to the list. Good effort. (We didn’t technically set foot in any of these states… but we certainly travelled through them and admired from the comfort of our reclining armchairs.) Arrived about 7.30pm in DC and jumped on what I lovingly termed the ‘retro metro‘ (a brilliant piece of 1970s concrete modernism) to head to our hostel – HI-DC.

We made an instant enemy in the form of the woman on the reception desk. Just a word of advice, do not mess with a sweaty pair of British girls. As she laboriously checked us in I could feel my life slowly ebbing away – a few hours on the train had made us desperate to get out and explore. But this misery was soon forgot about when we met some very chirpy Japanese girls in our room. Then we set out to explore the Capital…